The crescent moon draws me in. Without you, I have reverted back to what I was at birth: a creature of the night. I live only in my dreams of you. By day, I waste away, a shadow of the man that existed when you, my love, made me shine.
***
From a work-in-progress.
Locked in a basement for months, with a dirty one-by-three-foot window her only evidence that the outside world still existed, she sometimes wished she was dead. Not because she had lost hope, but rather if she was a ghost, she could walk through the closed door to freedom.
She wanted nothing more than to return to a life with a man who didn’t know she was alive. To die in such a hell hole alone was unthinkable. Somehow, through her dreams and his, she would let him know she was alive.
***
From a work-in-progress.
Stay in motion, stay in motion. Two breaths in (stay in), two breaths out (motion) to the rhythm of her feet as she jogged. The scrape of her sneakers on the gravel by the side of the deserted road was the only sound that cut through the dawn, apart from her breathy chant.
Was her morning jog a precursor to running away? Life at home was worthy of escape. All the insults, the yelling, the hitting. She knew it was only a matter of time.
Stay in motion, stay in motion. One day, she thought, she would not go back.
She knew in her heart he had another girl, but she had to to confirm it. She tried to sneak a peek at his phone, but she couldn’t get close enough. His friends would tell her nothing. Guys stick together.
So she had no choice but to go through all the profile pics of his connections on Facebook, to see if his face was there. When she hit the 2,347th “friend,” she decided to simply change her own relationship status to “It’s complicated” and ask him directly.
The one-word prompt on The Daily Post is “Complicated.”
The cash is sitting on the table. I watch on the closed-circuit camera set-up to see if she’ll reach for it. I trust her – we’ve been together for five years. I hope she won’t do it.
Trust is essential in a relationship. It’s the one thing that will make me cut out, lack of trustworthiness.
I’m just about to get up and go back into the room when she does it. It takes her under two seconds to grab and pocket the cash.
I go to confront her: “Why did you do it?” I ask.
“Why were you watching me?” she counters.
She’s got a point.
Reach is the one-word prompt from The Daily Post.
Cash is the one-word prompt from Stream of Consciousness Saturday.
“Okay, Mary, the players are neck in neck and coming to the finish line. Who will win the race for fastest text message?”
“Tommy’s in the lead now, Frank, with, ‘OMG SRSLY?'”
“And now it’s Gina with ‘WYSIWYG!'”
“They’re dead even! Time is running out!”
“What’s that? Did Tommy just… No! He was quick on his, ‘WTF’ but he forgot his punctuation! The judges aren’t going to like this.”
“You’re right, Frank. Especially the German judge.”
“It’s down to the wire. Gina’s has to come up with… She did it!”
“‘PMSL!’ For the win!”
“Gina is our new gold medalist!”
Your love for me is surface love. At parties you use me like a bauble, one to be pointed at and admired. In a restaurant you serve your knowledge of wine across the table and off me it bounces, volleying your admiration for yourself back at you.
But between the sheets you clothe me with confidence. You undress me with wanton passion. You gather me up and accompany me to your glory.
And in the morning… you skate away.
***
Surface is the one-word prompt on The Daily Post.
“I’m sorry, Marsha,” the doctor said as he sat back in his chair, behind his massive, expensive-looking desk. “There may be nothing I can do.”
“But… You’ve GOT to do something! I’m dying here!” Marsha gripped the arms of her own seat and lifted herself off it a few inches in agitation.
“Well let me see.” The doctor sat up, stared down his nose through his bifocals and flipped through a folder that lay on his desk. “There is something. But it’s going to take some money.”
“I’ll do anything! I’ll even go down to the bank for you myself!”
“Fine,” said the doctor. “Get me three cases of your Girl Guide cookies. I’ll give you a cheque.” He closed the folder. “Damned mothers and their little girls,” he muttered under his breath.
Pauly’s nerves threatened to cause his dinner to reappear as the tip of the knife pierced the skin on his throat.
“You couldn’t tell a joke if your life depended on it, could you?” the Master of Ceremonies asked.
Pauly should have known better than to enter Richard Bachman’s “The Funny Man” contest.
***
“Joke” is the one-word prompt on The Daily Post.
It was late December and all the elves were busy painting eggs when Santa came stomping into the factory.
“Shut down the production lines!” Santa bellowed from the middle of the floor.
“What for?” asked the grumpy foreman elf.
“The Easter Bunnies have overestimated their order again. We won’t be needing them.”
A groan went out somewhere in the back corner and from the front line, an Easter egg came rocketing through the air and hit Santa smack dab in the forehead.
Thus began the great Easter egg food fight of the century. When it was over and the last of the elves were leaving the factory after sweeping up the mess, someone commented that it was lucky the eggs were hollow, though it would have been more satisfying if they weren’t.
And that’s how Creme Eggs were invented.
***
Paint is the prompt word of the day at The Daily Post.
Linda G. Hill 